It's only fitting that Abbotsford Parks, Recreation and Culture is showing local artists at its new digs at City Hall.

When the department moved this year to the third floor, department head Mark Taylor approached Suzanne Greening, the executive director of The Reach gallery, about installing art in the common areas.

Greening checked out the well-lit area and expansive walls, and thought it would be a brilliant place to hang art. It's now a satellite gallery for The Reach.

"I believe the city should be promoting art, and it's very appropriate for Parks, Rec and Culture," said Greening.

The exhibits, which began with the Abbotsford Photo Arts Club and then painter Darrell Spenst, have been "very successful," she said. When there was a gap between the second and third exhibits, residents of the third floor were keening to see artwork back in the halls, she said.

"That tells me [the initiative] is working. Now there is art envy from other floors, they're jealous," she said. So in the fall, the gallery will extend to city hall's fifth floor.

The exhibition space is great for artists. The works are professionally hung, the lighting is good, and artists are welcome to include a price list to sell their work, said Greening.

Artists interested in exhibiting at City Hall should contact Greening at 604-864-8087 or at sgreening@thereach.ca.

Public art is popping up elsewhere in the city. The archives branch of The Reach has a heritage display at the Bakerview Ecodairy on Sumas Way.

And this week, two huge installations went up between the Agrifair main building and the show arena, part of a collaboration between the city and the University of the Fraser Valley fine arts department.

"It's a gorgeous piece, celebrating Abbotsford's heritage and the activities that go on at the site," said Tamaka Fisher, the city's arts and heritage co-ordinator. "[UFV teacher] Chris Friesen and his students did such a great job and we're so grateful."

Fisher hopes to continue the program, as it gives art students a real-life experience in responding and preparing bids for consignment works.

She is also teamed with much younger local artists. Twenty-two students from Chief Dan George middle school created a tile mosaic, which is now set into a plaza on the Discovery Trail, where it meets Gladwin Road.

Her next project is with the students at Margaret Stenerson. Public art is valuable as it humanizes public spaces, she said.

"It's a city's most visible commitment to culture. For people, it brightens up their day, and it makes people smile."

BENTE CREATES ON THIRD FLOOR GALLERY

Big blousy red poppies and dreamy landscapes by Abbotsford painter Bente Hansen currently welcome visitors to City Hall's third floor.

Her images are drenched in colour, and imbued with a serenity that draws in the observer.

Hansen, who picked up her brushes in 1999 after a long break from creating and studying art at the University of British Columbia, takes much of her inspiration from the natural world.

She travels around the Pacific Northwest and the Fraser Valley, where she regularly sketches images in local parks or favourite spots that give her long, spirit-lifting vistas.

"My plein air sketches bring ideas to my intuitive landscapes, which may start with a few simple strokes of colour and are finished with the memory from a location traveled to," she explains.

Forms and colours have some sense of the familiar, however her skies are no longer just blue, and forests rarely stay simply green, but include violet and yellow and orange, reminiscent of an Emily Carr palette. All Hansen's works are for sale.

n Visit the third floor gallery weekdays at City Hall, 32315 South Fraser Way, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.